We have not seen great things done in our time except by those who have been considered mean; the rest have failed.

It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.

A prince need trouble little about conspiracies when the people are well disposed, but when they are hostile and hold him in hatred, then he must fear everything and everybody.

Those who either from imprudence or want of sagacity avoid doing so, are always overwhelmed with servitude and poverty; for faithful servants are always servants, and honest men are always poor; nor do any ever escape from servitude but the bold and faithless, or from poverty, but the rapacious and fraudulent.

A battle that you win cancels any other bad action of yours. In the same way, by losing one, all the good things worked by you before become vain.

As all those have shown who have discussed civil institutions, and as every history is full of examples, it is necessary to whoever arranges to found a Republic and establish laws in it, to presuppose that all men are bad and that they will use their malignity of mind every time they have the opportunity.

Men are driven by two principal impulses, either by love or by fear.